Putin lords over a kleptocracy that has fleeced public funds on such an unprecedented scale, it makes the kleptocracies African despots lord over seem petty.
(“Ukraine’s (Peaceful) Orange Revolution Turns Red … with Blood,” The iPINIONS Journal, February 25, 2014)
President Vladimir Putin sold the Russian people on the 2014 Winter Olympics in Sochi as an opportunity – not only to showcase culture, wealth, and resurgent power to rival that which China showcased during the 2008 Summer Olympics in Beijing, but also to build a year-round holiday resort to rival those on the French Riviera.
Except that:
Putin and his cronies used the $51-billion Sochi Olympics as an egregious kickback scheme. Nothing betrays this fact quite like Sochi already looking like a crumbling, desolate North-Korean settlement just weeks after the end of the Games.
(“Prokhorov, Russian Owner of NBA Nets, Exposed,” The iPINIONS Journal, March 26, 2014)
Still, the Russian people should have known better. After all, they only had to reflect on what became of state-of-the-art venues from the 1984 Winter Olympics in Sarajevo (or even those from the 2004 Summer Olympics in Athens) to appreciate what likely portends for the Sochi venues. Not least because, in the run up to the Olympics, there were as many stories foreshadowing Sochi’s doomed fate as there were hailing its Shangri-La future:
Abandoned and left to crumble into oblivion, most of the 1984 Winter Olympic venues in Bosnia’s capital Sarajevo have been reduced to rubble by neglect as much as the 1990s conflict that tore apart the former Yugoslavia. The bobsleigh and luge track at Mount Trebevic, the Mount Igman ski jumping course and accompanying objects are now decomposing into obscurity.
(Agence France-Presse, February 10, 2014)
Now bear in mind that Sarajevo is Bosnia’s capital; whereas Sochi is as remote from Moscow as Little Rock is from Washington, DC. It stands to reason, therefore, that Sochi is even more disposed to salutary neglect than Sarajevo….
More to the point, though, such desolation and decay is inevitable when, besides sheer graft, organizers are more interested in the political prestige the Olympics brings than in how the capital expenditures required will ultimately redound to the long-term benefit of the host city.
But leave it to Putin to extract life out of Sochi even as it falls into inexorable decay. Only this explains how it managed to enjoy the highly coveted honor of hosting a leg of the Formula One Gran Prix, which Sochi did on Sunday.
Last weekend the Black Sea resort of Sochi hosted Russia’s first ever Formula One Grand Prix race. The debut was acclaimed as a success, with famous drivers, journalists and the public lining up to pay compliments to the Russian organizers on their achievement…
Most of the people associated with F1, not only Hamilton, were surprised to see how popular racing is in Russia.
(Russia Beyond the Headlines, October 13, 2014)
Of course, putting on a good show for a captive audience, no matter the circumstances, is quite easy when you’re a despot and public funds are no object. Moreover, I would bet some of my well-gotten gains that Russia paid far more to host this F1 race than it generated in revenues/profits.
But, given the control Putin wields over mainstream and social media, this event would have been reported to the Russian people as a resounding success even if race cars ended up plummeting into sinkholes in the middle of the track.
I don’t know what other public shows Putin has in mind for Sochi. But what I do know is that, far from the fantasy of “if you build it, [they] will come,” this is one field of dreams that will end in a nightmare. The only question is how much more Putin is prepared to waste before even he sees the futility of keeping up appearances to make this money pit seem like a national treasure….
That said, as an avid fan of F1, despite its now venal association with Putin, I would be remiss not to offer this abiding observation:
If you don’t know Formula One from Formula 409, please take note:
F1 car racing is a sport that requires the steady hands of a surgeon, the daring skill of a jet fighter, and the physical stamina of a marathon runner.
Moreover, no sport can match the sustained thrill and nail-biting suspense one gets from watching those drivers navigate the zigs, zags, and hairpin-turns of a grand prix racetrack as they jockey for position at speeds exceeding 200 mph!
(“Hamilton Becomes the Youngest Ever and First Black F1 Champion,” The iPINIONS Journal, November 3, 2008)
No doubt I found Sunday’s race all the more thrilling because, with yet another win, Lewis Hamilton practically assured himself of his first series championship since his historic win in 2008.
Meanwhile, Putin’s neo-fascist reputation is such that, when I saw him shaking hands with the victorious Hamilton, I could not get the image of Adolf Hitler shaking hands with Jesse Owens – ever so begrudgingly – out of my mind. This probably had something to do with my being compelled to draw so many historical comparisons between Hitler and Putin earlier this year in such commentaries as “Putin as Hitler, Crimea as Sudetenland?” February 26, 2014.
Whatever the case, I share this image with profound apologies to Putin. Because, even though he’s a megalomaniacal fascist, he’s no genocidal racist. Specifically, unlike Hitler with Owens, I think Putin genuinely appreciated Hamilton’s master-race performance (i.e., notwithstanding that he was the only Black driver who competed).
NOTE: I know the prevailing view is that Hitler left the stadium in a huff after Owens made a mockery of his proclamations about Aryan superiority. But no less a person than Owens himself is on record saying that, although too humbled, if not too humiliated, to shake his hand in full public view, Hitler did so privately.
And don’t get me started on the insidious hypocrisy inherent in the fact that, many of the compatriots hurling moral indignation at Hitler for snubbing Owens in Nazi Germany, were the same ones who would not eat in the same restaurant with him, let alone shake his hand, back home in Jim Crow America.
Related commentaries:
Ukraine…
Prokhorov exposed…
Hamilton…